Kenya

Partially Legally Recognized

7 July 2016, Kenya

A personal story of a Trans person as they navigate the legal system in Kenya in relation to name change. It highlights the challenges Kenyan Trans people go through when they legally change their name but are unable to effect the changes on their national documents.

South African Government Silent on Transgender and Intersex Rights

Gambia, 11 April 2016

Today, the South African (SA) government presented its state report to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) during the latter’s 58th Ordinary Session in Banjul, the Gambia, 6-20 April 2016. We noted with concern that the SA State report neglected to address widespread human rights challenges faced by transgender and intersex persons in South Africa. It merely contains a brief section on “Sexual orientation and gender identity”, but the focus is on sexual orientation, same-sex marriage and homophobia, and refers primarily to gays and lesbians. Read more...

The Elections Serve as a Painful Reminder of How the South African Government Renders Trans and Intersex People Non-Citizens

South Africa, 7 April 2016

In 2014, transgender woman Nadia Swanepoel went on a hunger strike to protest discriminatory treatment at the hands of the Department of Home Affairs after the process to change her name and her gender marker on her identity document in terms of the Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act 49 of 2003 (Act 49) had been ongoing for over 3 years.

Department of Home Affairs still fails to systematically address discrimination against Transgender and Intersex people despite numerous meetings with T&I NGOs over the years on Act 49.

Her struggle is one of many, and a reflection of systematic bias within the Department of Home Affairs system. The lack of regulations to oversee and streamline the application process at Home Affairs has meant that the application process is left to the whims of Home Affairs’ officials and their prejudices. This has resulted in applications taking years to be processed, getting lost or simply being rejected without sufficient reasons. For intersex South Africans the provisions in Act 49 are harsh as well, legislating a pre-requisite unbroken 2 year period during which they must “satisfactorily prove” their gender, as well as medically proving intersex status – invasive and cumbersome requirements.

South African Trans and Intersex people are denied access to IDs, effectively denying them voting rights.

Without an accurate ID, a person is hindered in seeking employment, is unable to enter into contracts such as bank accounts, store accounts, rental agreements, loan contracts and unable to access services such as grants, housing shelters, opening a hospital file, updating a driver’s licence and denied their right to vote. The state’s failure to provide transgender and intersex persons with the necessary documentation renders trans and intersex South Africans non-citizens, and puts them at increased risk of being seen as fraudulent which subjects them to humiliation and potential arrests. It grants to cisgender people rights denied to transgender and intersex populations. The Department of Home Affairs’ lack of will with regard to enabling gender marker changes disenfranchises transgender and intersex voters, creates a system of gate-keeping of citizenship and perpetuates grave injustices and human rights violations against the transgender and intersex populations.

The 2016 South African municipal elections will be held on 3 August 2016. Iranti-org will intensify its advocacy actions for individuals who have been waiting for their correct ID cards and seek immediate remedies before election time.

If you have applied for a gender marker change under Act 49 and are still waiting for your ID, please contact us through Survey Monkey to enable us to urgently assist you while we continue to fight for structural reform.

Iranti-org is part of the ACTion49 Campaign – an Iranti-org, Gender Dynamix, LRC coalition fighting for better implementation of, and immediate redress for applicants under the Act 49 as well as of the broader Self-Identification and Bodily Autonomy Legal Reform working group – a coalition of South African Trans and Intersex focused NGOs and individuals whose goals include pursuit of reforms that will allow transgender and intersex persons to access socio-economic rights, such as the rights to education, social assistance and non-discriminatory employment opportunities; and pursuit of self-identification and the depathologisation of transgender and intersex identities within the healthcare and legal fields.

UN SOGI Resolution interview with
Steve Letsike

South Africa, 22 June 2016

Steve Letsike, the director of Access Chapter 2, is a local and international LGBTI activist who has worked closely with the South African Government around constitutional reform and gender justice. In light of the Latin American Core Group (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay) which has recently tabled the SOGI resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, we asked Steve to weigh in on why she thinks the South African government should vote for a UN SOGI Expert and what this would mean for LGBTI activism on a global level.

UN SOGI Resolution interview with
Yasmin Sooka

South Africa, 22 June 2016

In many countries, LGBTI communities and activists are criminalized and persecuted daily. Globally, the fight for LGBTI rights to be recognized and included in the human rights frameworks of various countries and regional bodies is still a long way from victory. The Latin American Core Group (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay) has now officially tabled the SOGI resolution at the UN Human Rights Council. In South Africa, the government has made various commitments in the constitution to uphold and protect personal freedoms including those of the LGBTI community. Therefore, it becomes imperative that the South African government votes affirmative for a UN SOGI expert. In South Africa, we spoke to Yasmin Sooka, who has been involved in many UN processes and has served as a UN Special Rapporteur for torture in Sri Lanka, in order to get her perspective on what a UN SOGI Expert would mean for LGBTI activism globally.

Kenya

Leone Dalziel

18 February 2016, Kenya

Leone Dalziel, from Kenya, is a young Trans man, a social justice activist and a blogger. He is committed to improving the lives of transgender people in Africa. In 2015, Leone received a fellowship from the Open Society Foundation, East Africa (OSEA) to be based at Iranti-org. During his fellowship, he learned and practiced how to use media tools for advocacy. This podcast is a product of his work.

Iranti-org, together with other interested NGOs such as Gender
Dynamix and GATE have been embarking on advocacy work around
increasing African engagement with the ICD revision process,
specifically in relation to Gender Incongruence in Adulthood and
Adolescence as well as Childhood.

From discussions that have taken place since the inception of our work
in this field, there have emerged several concerns around the approach
taken in the South African field testing process specifically. This
has culminated in the attached letter of concern co-authored and
co-signed by several individuals who were involved in the field
testing process (indicated by an asterisk), as well as those currently
invested in it.

Together with other organisations, Iranti-org looks forward to
meaningfully engaging with the WHO in addressing some of these
concerns in the run up to 2018 and exploring alternative options where
possible with regards to field testing in South Africa.

by Vikar Singh, National Officer for Sexual and Reproductive Health including HIV/AIDS (NORA)

South Africa, 7 December 2015
5 December 2015 marked Africa’s first-ever Transgender Visibility Day. The initiative aims to fight Transphobia in all its forms and demands that transgender persons across Africa are protected against violence, economic oppression and should enjoy full human rights - including the right to healthcare and full legal protection.

The Committee on Sexual and Reproductive Health including HIV/AIDS (SCORA) has 5 main focus areas, which includes Sexuality and gender identity by committing to end stigma and discrimination in access to healthcare of LGBT+ individuals.

I recently caught up with Dr. Anastacia Tomson at the 7th African Population Conference in Pretoria, South Africa. She is a medical doctor, author, activist and a transgender woman.

Read more on the SAMSA website. South African Medical Students Association (SAMSA) is a national nonprofit organization of medical students from various medical schools working on a voluntary basis to create positive change in medicine.

by Vikar Singh, National Officer for Sexual and Reproductive Health including HIV/AIDS (NORA)

South Africa, 7 December 2015
5 December 2015 marked Africa’s first-ever Transgender Visibility Day. The initiative aims to fight Transphobia in all its forms and demands that transgender persons across Africa are protected against violence, economic oppression and should enjoy full human rights - including the right to healthcare and full legal protection.

The Committee on Sexual and Reproductive Health including HIV/AIDS (SCORA) has 5 main focus areas, which includes Sexuality and gender identity by committing to end stigma and discrimination in access to healthcare of LGBT+ individuals.

I recently caught up with Dr. Anastacia Tomson at the 7th African Population Conference in Pretoria, South Africa. She is a medical doctor, author, activist and a transgender woman.

Read more on the SAMSA website. South African Medical Students Association (SAMSA) is a national nonprofit organization of medical students from various medical schools working on a voluntary basis to create positive change in medicine.

did the stars hide in mourning last night?
did your neighbor’s dog stop barking?
did the rooster not crow this morning?
did the tellers at Shoprite close/ this morning?
shall your being be respected on the day they bury you?

lovers kiss each other in the dark. forbidden. mouths that never
uttered your name.

Johannesburg, 25 May 2015
Iranti-org becomes the first African organisation to become an official member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). WPATH is an organisation devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender dysphoria and is most known for its periodic publication of the Standards of Care (SOC) for the health of trans* people. Read the full press statement…

The recent revelations by Keeping Up With The Kardashian’s star Bruce Jenner that he has decided to become a woman has created a spotlight on gender identity across the world. Gender DynamiX was interviewed on Expresso SABC

Leigh Ann van der Merwe is the Director of the Social Health Empowerment forum better know as SHE. Transgender awareness became an interest for the South African media when Bruce Jenner in the US came out. Leigh Ann is interviewed on this and speaks about the struggles we face in South Africa as trans* person. This is a podcast from that interview. Listen to the interview on Sound Cloud.

23 December 2014
Over the past months and in some cases years I have engaged with some of you regarding my transition, all my fears, my concerns related to my feminism and conflicted, and never wanting to be embodied in any particular binary of being male or female, I still hold true to this.

I thought I should put out what’s foremost in my mind and in someway, do what I know best, that is to document stories and to join my story along with many, in what Ann Cvetkovich calls the Archive of Feelings. In my recent talk at the Quorum platform, I spoke of the trauma of the absence of histories that link our pasts and our present.

I hope that my construction of a FAQ narrative is more a constructed conversation with myself but also the many questions I have been asked over the past months and years. I only hope FAQ is not construed as a factual listing but rather a probing set of questions and answers I am engaging in.

I am also very aware that I have friends who walked this journey with me, for a long time and are as ahead as I am, and there are others who are only engaging with my transition in this present moment, either way, I ask you to be patient with me and I will similarly be patient with you as you become part of my gender identity and gender expression. I am aware that there are some who clearly won’t accept transgender persons, I am sorry that you will exit my life at this stage, feel free to engage and to express your feelings in this safe space.

Between 20 November and 10 December several important dates that highlight trans* awareness across the region occur. The period includes Trans Day of Remembrance, Rainbow Identity Association's Trans Pride in Botswana, World AIDS Day and International Human Rights Day. These are all significant dates that impact on our gender identity and gender expression.

We demand that transgender persons across Africa are protected against violence, economic oppression and should enjoy full human rights - including the right to health care, and full legal protection. All countries in Africa are signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.

We call on you to stand with us and fight transphobia in all its forms. Join us on Africa Trans* Day of Visibility taking place on Saturday 5 December 2015 at the Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg!

The legal recognition of Trans People
in South Africa

South Africa, 21 September 2016

The Alteration of Sex Status and Sex Descriptor Act 49 of 2003, referred to simply as "Act 49", allows South Africans to change their gender marker on their identity documents. Without the correct ID, it's difficult or impossible to apply for jobs, access a hospital, obtain school results, open a bank account and withdraw money, obtain a driver's licence, travel, vote, access social grants or shelters, or accomplish any number of other basic tasks. People using a name or presenting themselves as a gender that is not reflected in their ID book are regularly turned away from services, subject to humiliating delay and interrogation, and are at risk of verbal or physical violence because of that perceived discrepancy. Provisions of the Act 49 are regularly ignored or violated in practice by the Department of Home Affairs. We follow the plight of Nadia Swanepoel who, after a 3 year wait, embarked on a hunger strike in her struggle to get the Department of Home Affairs to issue her with the correct ID, and look at some of the core issues of this systemic problem.

Trans MSM in the Global HIV response

We are a group of gay, bisexual, queer, and other trans masculine people* who have sex with men (trans MSM) and allies, and we are involved in the global HIV/AIDS response as advocates, researchers, and service providers.

Read more about Trans masculine people who have sex with men claiming our place in the global HIV response - Trans and MSM, 3MB PDF

SOGI VICTORY at the United Nations

30 June 2016, Geneva

United Nations Makes History on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity by establishing an Independent Expert. It is a historic victory for the human rights of all persons who are at risk of discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, 28 human rights groups said today. “It is important to note that around 70% of the organizations are from the global south,” said Yahia Zaidi of MantiQitna Network. “This is a powerful cross regional message of strength to the United Nations to protect the rights of LGBTI persons.”Read more…

AFRICAN BODIES BREAKING GROUND BUILDING BRIDGES

Jholerina Timbo, director Wings to Transcend in Namibia

South Africa, 27 June 2016
African Bodies Breaking Grounds Building Bridges was the theme for the Pan African IlGA Regional Conference that took place in Johannesburg from 13-18 May 2016. This conference meant that emerging trans focused organizations had an opportunity to network with bigger organizations to share experiences, get advice and guidance.

Small organizations engaged with possible donors and funders to create future partnerships that could benefit the transgender community of Namibia. The Trans pre-conference was amazing and hands on and we got to see that regardless of where in Africa we come from, we share similar challenges. We face issues of stigma, discrimination and violence.

Access to services health care facilities and the protection from the law is lacking. Generally, there is a lack of information on Trans terminologies and what they mean, there is a lack of trans visibility in commonalities were part of the issues that came up. It came to light that as much as we might find ourselves in different parts of Africa, gender identity issues still need a lot of advocacy, sensitization and awareness-raising. This became evident when many transgender activists expressed views on how they have to advocate for inclusion and space we are supposed to be part of like LGBTI conferences.

The main conference was also informative with panel discussions that motivated and enlightened us on how we can lobby for equality and equity for the communities we serve. There were panel discussions that also shared best practices and guidelines to ensure our advocacy strategies are in line with our country contexts and constitutions. Furthermore, how we can use regional and international instruments and mechanism to aid our struggle and trans advocacy.

This conference brought together more than 35 countries and had more then 180 participants from across the globe.

The conference was a safe space where many Africans that are rejected, stigmatized and unacknowledged could express themselves fully without fear. The PAN AFRICAN ILGA REGIONAL LGBTI CONFERENCE was motivational. Yes, indeed, African bodies are breaking grounds and building bridges.

UN SOGI Resolution interview with
Steve Letsike

South Africa, 22 June 2016

Steve Letsike, the director of Access Chapter 2, is a local and international LGBTI activist who has worked closely with the South African Government around constitutional reform and gender justice. In light of the Latin American Core Group (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay) which has recently tabled the SOGI resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, we asked Steve to weigh in on why she thinks the South African government should vote for a UN SOGI Expert and what this would mean for LGBTI activism on a global level.

UN SOGI Resolution interview with
Yasmin Sooka

South Africa, 22 June 2016

In many countries, LGBTI communities and activists are criminalized and persecuted daily. Globally, the fight for LGBTI rights to be recognized and included in the human rights frameworks of various countries and regional bodies is still a long way from victory. The Latin American Core Group (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay) has now officially tabled the SOGI resolution at the UN Human Rights Council. In South Africa, the government has made various commitments in the constitution to uphold and protect personal freedoms including those of the LGBTI community. Therefore, it becomes imperative that the South African government votes affirmative for a UN SOGI expert. In South Africa, we spoke to Yasmin Sooka, who has been involved in many UN processes and has served as a UN Special Rapporteur for torture in Sri Lanka, in order to get her perspective on what a UN SOGI Expert would mean for LGBTI activism globally.

Yearning To Be Freely Me

By Dalziel Leone

Kenya, 27 May 2016

Sitting on the sandy beach front on Mombasa's public beach, Saida stares into the vast blue horizon while she fidgets with her fingers. She's twenty-two, slender, and her demeanour is shy. This is her favourite place to come to when she wants to think about her life.

“I come here a lot. Especially when there are few people around, mostly in the early hours of the morning. It’s usually peaceful, and I don’t have to worry about people looking at me weirdly. The beach doesn’t mind about my gender!” she says, chuckling.

Saida is a transwoman, with Muslim parents and a mixed upbringing. Read more...

Yearning To Be Freely Me

By Dalziel Leone

Kenya, 27 May 2016

Sitting on the sandy beach front on Mombasa's public beach, Saida stares into the vast blue horizon while she fidgets with her fingers. She's twenty-two, slender, and her demeanour is shy. This is her favourite place to come to when she wants to think about her life.

“I come here a lot. Especially when there are few people around, mostly in the early hours of the morning. It’s usually peaceful, and I don’t have to worry about people looking at me weirdly. The beach doesn’t mind about my gender!” she says, chuckling.

Saida is a transwoman, with Muslim parents and a mixed upbringing. Read more...

Anastacia Tomson is a medical doctor, activist and author. She has a history of working in primary healthcare, with a special interest in transgender health.

Her autobiography, detailing her own experiences and challenges seen through the lens of transition, is set for release in early 2016. Anastacia is a vocal feminist and advocate for social justice, with a passion for promoting awareness, education and understanding of trans issues.

Malume is Xolile Mabuza's preferred name. He is his chosen gender pronoun. A proud Transgender rights activist and an overall human rights activist sadly passed away on the 13th September 2015. He was the founder and director of Rock of Hope and LGBTI human rights organisation in Swaziland. Iranti-org produced this tribute along with friends of Malume. there were just so many tributes we not able to add them all, but we hope this tribute honors his memory and the love he had for each of us. RIP Malume, you are sorely missed.

If you missed it or want to relive this historical day, here's a video about Africa Trans* Day of Visibility. On December 5, 2015 we celebrated African Trans* Visibility with panels, discussions, stalls and performances, all at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, South Africa.

History made: Photos from Africa Trans* Day of Visibility

South Africa, 5 December 2015

On the 5 December 2015, Iranti-org hosted its first Africa Trans* Visibility Day at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, which brought together Transgender activists from Uganda, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, and Namibia. Panel discussions on Trans* rights, accessing healthcare, legal recognition, employment, safety and security, allowed participants to observe experiences of panellist's daily lives. The day visibilised transgender lives within Africa and celebrated freedom and ownership of their lives. The afternoon programme ended with musical performances and gatherings.

Photos by Dean Hutton

MCee Seo Mooketsi opened Africa Trans* Visibility Day with a beautiful poem.